I Heard It

I don’t know what prompted the thought, but I heard it, clear as day. And I meant it. Like, deep-down meant it.

I will not lessen the power of those words by analyzing them or thinking deep thoughts at them. I will merely say it again:

I love who I am.

The bread knew it before I did.

That showed up a few days ago. Pulled it out of the bag and there it was. Tempted to sneer at it, I took its picture instead.

I love who I am.

Join me in this important incantation, won’t you?

The wink of the universe, ever so clever.

About stacy

I am a writer, author, mother, former magazine editor (last at Redbook), optimist, and, above all, a searcher. I'm still searching for whom I'm really meant to be, after a series of very jarring losses: a divorce and house disaster that led to a book (Falling Apart In One Piece); a week after the book came out, my parents suddenly fell gravely ill, I resigned from my job (and, apparently, my career), my son went into crisis, my parents then rapidly died four weeks apart, and my boyfriend (who had moved in with me and my son just weeks before the book came out) began the painful journey of realizing we couldn't make our relationship work (that story unfolded on this blog). Since then I've been trying to figure out what's next. Or, in other words, how to fill in the blanks.

I am so with you. I am doing a retreat this week, the space between Christmas and New Year’s, and the realization for me is that my work, right now and for as long as it takes, is to learn to practice radical self-acceptance, to once and for all fall completely and utterly in love with myself. I want to love who I am as easily and completely as I can love who you are.

Jill, and I am so with YOU. It’s taken two decades of therapy, the death of my parents, the loss of my footing professionally and this most recent breakup for me to be in the same room with my suspicion that I am wanting as a person–apparently I was blessed with some fantastically ironclad coping devices (which I knew). And now I am cursed with them, left to have to birth myself anew, out of weakness rather than strength. Which, needless to say, I am not enjoying!! But I will join you in the task of engaging in radical-self acceptance; for me the mission is a covert one. I have to sneak up on myself to catch the inwardly directed contempt and pull it out into the light and say, “Oh, no you don’t!” I am overweight and in my worst health in my entire life because I feel so exposed, so weak, and have now for coming up on three years. (THREE YEARS!) I need to be able to see the weak is not powerless, not disgusting, not a sign that I will never be happy; that the weak is as much as sign of my glory and humanity as is my natural compassion. It’s a tricky trick, or so it feels to me, but here’s hoping we both find our way to get there, together, so we can have a party at the peak — or the valley, even, if that’s what it’s meant to be!! I have decided to re-start my meditation practice as my first act of self-love, a morning devotional, as it were. And my first mantra will be this: “My vulnerability is beautiful.” Of course, that’s why I write this blog. It is here that I believe it, thanks in no small part to the voices and friends I have discovered and made herein.

I’ve always battled that thought — not able to love others until we love ourselves — because I always thought I DID love myself. And I do! I really do! The discovery of this underlying river of discontent within me has been startling…. and now I must fjord it or dam it up or dry it out…. or, more likely, go swimming in it and see that the water is just fine. ; )

And all the same to you, too, dear friend. The holidays ate my comments to your beautiful comments on previous posts, but please know next time I see you, we are stealing away to talk about our family histories. Okay? xxx